经济学人下载:旅行签证 一种奇怪的欢迎方式

Business: Travel visas A strange sort of welcome
商业：旅行签证，奇怪的欢迎方式

Governments are deterring business travellers and tourists with cumbersome visa requirements that do little to make their countries more secure.
多国政府正以繁琐的签证要求阻挡商务旅行者和观光客，而这对维护国家安全作用甚微。

THE rise of big emerging economies like China and India, and the steady march of globalisation, have led to a surge in the numbers of people wanting to travel abroad for business or tourism.
中国和印度等大型新兴经济体的崛起，加上全球化的稳步迈进，使得想出国商务旅行或观光旅游的人数激增。

As a result, demand for visas is at uNPRecedented levels.
因此，对签证的需求达到了前所未有的水平。

In the fiscal year to the end of September 2014 the United States granted just under 10m visas—up from around 6m in 1997, despite blips in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 and the global financial crisis of 2007-08.
截至2014年9月底的财政年度里，美国颁发了接近1000万份签证。签证数量从1997年的约600万份起逐渐增加，仅在2001年911恐怖袭击和2007至2008年全球金融危机之后有所波动。

Citizens of America, Britain and some other rich countries can travel to most places without a visa.
美国、英国和其他一些富裕国家的公民无需签证即可到世界上大部分地区旅行。

Chinese and Indian travellers are far more likely to have to apply for them.
中国和印度的旅行者需要申请签证的几率要大得多。

And citizens of a few benighted places, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, have to submit to the cost and bureaucracy—and often the humiliation—of the visa-application process to get to most places.
而少数几个落后国家如伊拉克和阿富汗等国的公民想去大部分地方都不得不忍受签证申请的高成本和繁缛流程，还时常被羞辱。

The most sensible response to this surge in demand for short-term visas would be for governments to streamline the application process and scrap the most onerous requirements.
短期签证的需求激增，最明智的应对应当是政府简化申请程序，废除最繁重的要求。

But governments are often not sensible about such things.
但是各国政府在这方面往往不那么明智。

The 26 European countries with a common visa policy—the “Schengen group” —require tourists from India and other developing countries to provide several months' worth of bank statements and pay slips.
拥有统一签证政策的26个欧洲国家，即“申根国”，要求来自印度和其他发展中国家的旅行者提供数月的银行对账单和工资单。

Visitors to Britain often have to fill in a ten-page application form, including details of every trip abroad for the past ten years.
去英国旅行的人通常得填写十页的申请表，包括过去十年每次出国旅行的详细情况。

Business travellers to India must provide two references.
去印度的商务旅行者必须提供两份推荐信。

Mexico has scrapped a rule requiring visa applicants (including women) to submit a description of their mustaches.
墨西哥已经废除了一条规定，要求签证申请人（包括女性）提交关于其胡须的描述。

But in 2016 America will start requiring visas for some travellers who currently do not need them—if, for example, they have visited Iran, Iraq, Syria or Sudan in the previous five years.
但2016年美国将开始要求一些目前无需签证的旅行者申请签证，例如，那些在过去五年内到访过伊朗、伊拉克、叙利亚或苏丹的人。

In many cases, instead of simplifying the visa process, governments have offloaded it to private contractors.
很多时候，政府并未简化签证流程，而是把它转交给私营承包机构。

Travellers may now have to pay a service fee to the company handling their application on top of the standard visa fee.
现在，除了标准的签证费，旅行者可能还需要向处理申请的公司支付一笔服务费。

The biggest firm in this growing business is VFS Global, which is part of Kuoni, a Swiss tourism company.
在这个不断增长的行业中，最大的公司是VFS Global，它是瑞士旅游公司瑞士旅业集团的子公司。

Starting from a single premises in Mumbai in 2001, handling applications for American visas, VFS now has more than 1,900 visa centres in 124 countries, processing paperwork for 48 governments.
2001年VFS从位于孟买的一个单一办理机构起家，处理美国签证申请，现在它在124个国家设有1900多个签证中心，为48个政府处理签证材料。

Of the 113m visa applications made worldwide in 2013, one in three went through a contractor, reckons VFS, which has about half the market.
据VFS估算，2013年全球1.13亿份签证申请中，有三分之一通过承包商处理，其中VFS占有一半市场。

Its main rivals are CSC, with around 10% of the market, and TLScontact, with around 7%.
它主要的对手是约占10%市场份额的CSC和约占7%市场的TLScontact。

Dozens of smaller firms make up the remainder of the market.
几十家较小的公司瓜分了剩下的市场。

The private contractors collect and verify the applicant's paperwork, ensure that forms are filled in properly, take fingerprints and other biometric information and collect the fees.
私营承包机构收集并验证申请者的文件，确保表格正确填写，采集指纹和其他生物识别信息，并且收取费用。

The consular staff of the destination country simply decide whether to grant the visa, and slap a sticker in the passport of successful applicants.
目的地国领事馆的工作人员只决定是否颁发签证，并在申请成功者的护照上贴上贴纸。

For the contractors, it is a nice little earner.
对于承包机构来说，这门生意很好赚。

VFS probably enjoys operating margins of 20%, reckons Kathleen Gailliot, an analyst at Natixis, a French bank.
法国外贸银行的分析师凯特琳·加耶里奥估算，VFS很可能享有20%的毛利率。

The companies are given a free hand to pad their earnings with pricey “premium” services.
这些公司已被赋予自主权，通过昂贵的“高级”服务来增加收入。

In Mumbai, for example, VFS offers Indians applying for British visas a text on their mobile phones to notify them that their passports are ready for collection, at 128 rupees ($2) a shot.
例如在孟买，VFS向申请英国签证的印度人提供发送短信到手机的服务，通知他们护照已经可取，收费为128卢比（2美元）一单。

For an extra 2,548 rupees, applicants can use a special “lounge” area while submitting their documents, and have their passports posted back to them.
另加2548卢比，申请人在提交文件时可以使用特别的“休息区”，办好的护照也可以寄回给他们。

VFS accounts for just 5% of Kuoni's revenues but more than 60% of its operating profits.
VFS仅占瑞士旅业集团收入的5%，但占其营业利润的60%还多。

So bright are the division's prospects that its parent company is getting out of the tour-operator business, which it has been in since 1906, to concentrate on visa-processing and a few other specialist travel services.
这一部门的前景非常光明，因此母公司正逐步脱离自1906年起就开始运营的旅行社业务，专注于签证办理和其他几项专业旅行服务。

Until VFS opened its Mumbai office, applicants had to queue for an average of five hours in the sweltering heat outside the American consulate.
VFS在孟买开设分公司之前，申请人要顶着酷暑在美国领事馆外排平均五个小时的队。

After the job was handed to the contractor, the typical waiting time fell to one hour.
这项工作转交承包机构之后，一般的等候时间减至一小时。

However, applicants still have no choice but to submit to whatever petty demands contractors make—such as, say, banning them from using mobile phones while they sit waiting for their appointments.
但是申请人除了接受承包机构的各项要求之外仍然别无选择，无论这些要求多么琐碎，例如，不准在等待面谈时使用手机。

If the staff are rude, the queues are badly managed or the “extras” extravagantly priced, travellers can hardly take their business elsewhere.
即便工作人员粗鲁无礼，队伍排得乱七八糟，或者“额外费用”高昂，旅行者也难有其他选择。

The application-processing firms are profiting both from travellers' lack of choice and from governments' failure to consider the economic damage caused by their visa requirements.
签证申请处理公司从两个方面获利：一是旅行者缺乏选择，二是政府没能考虑到签证要求造成的经济损失。

There is scant evidence that making all travellers submit the same documents every time they want to travel, or provide extensive financial details, protects countries from terrorists or illegal immigrants.
鲜有证据能证明，让所有旅行者每次想旅行时都提交同样的文件，或是提供大量的财务信息，就能保护国家免受恐怖分子或非法移民的侵害。

In contrast, there is evidence of how liberal visa regimes bring in the bucks.
相反，倒是有证据显示自由的签证制度能带来何等利益。

A report in 2014 from the European Parliament, “A Smarter Visa Policy for Economic Growth”, estimated that over-strict visa rules probably cost the EU economy 250,000 jobs and 12.6 billion euro ($13.8 billion) a year in lost output.
2014年欧洲议会一份名为“促进经济增长的更明智签证政策”的报告估算，过于严格的签证规定可能让欧盟经济每年损失25万个工作岗位，产出损失达126亿欧元（138亿美元）。

It recommended requiring fewer documents from applicants, handing out longer visas and simplifying the whole process.
报告建议减少要求申请者提交的文件，颁发更长期的签证，并且简化整个流程。

Since Britain is not part of the Schengen group, Chinese people taking a tour of Europe have to apply for a second visa to cross the Channel.
因为英国并不是申根国，去欧洲旅游的中国人要穿越英吉利海峡就不得不再申请一个签证。

Only 6% of them do so, says Euromonitor, a research firm.
研究公司欧睿称仅有6%的人这么做。

The British Tourist Authority has complained that the country's visa policies cost it ￡2.8 billion ($4.1 billion) a year in lost revenue.
英国旅游局曾经抱怨英国的签证政策让该国每年损失28亿英镑（41亿美元）的收入。

However, amid worries about the wave of asylum-seekers from Syria and elsewhere, governments in Europe and beyond will face pressure to keep making life hard for tourists and business travellers—even as other departments of those same governments spend heavily on promoting tourism and foreign investment.
不过，由于担心来自叙利亚和其他地区的难民蜂拥而至，欧洲和欧洲以外的各国政府将面临压力，商务旅行者和观光客的日子仍然不会好过，尽管这些政府的其他部门在花大钱促进旅游业和外国投资。